JACK-DAYTRIP FROM PARIS-GIVERNY AND MONET(1)
Jack
Loire, Belgium and Holland posts are visible with pictures on
http://i.am/jack_travel and on http://home.mminternet.com/~nowhere_man
Also my Paris sketches and series about Paris bridges are on
http://i.am/jack_travel
DAYTRIP FROM PARIS-GIVERNY AND MONET(1)
Beware!! The house of Monet is closed in the winter!! To be more
precise from Oct 31 to April 1. Be aware of that before scheduling a
day trip to Giverny! As impatient you are to get to Monet's house, see
finally that so famous garden and walk in the footsteps of that great
genius, artist and painter who gives us so much emotion, plan the
whole daytrip well in advance. You can eventually add adventure to
your trip by setting out on a bicycle the SNCF railways offers
sometimes right at the station.
How do you get to Giverny? Take the train from the gare St.Lazare to
Vernon, a journey time of one hour. At the station with a taxi or a
bicycle to Giverny. Giverny!! Charming village rising gradually on a
sweet slope at the shores of the Seine. Monet contributed of course a
lot to its glory when he decided to settle down here in 1883 until his
death in 1926. He rests in the parochial cemetery. And it's under
Monet's impulsion that a lot of artists (of which numerous Americans)
came to Giverny. Without Monet this village would have remained
totally unknown but it is now the Mecca of the Impressionists with the
negative side that in the summer the place is stormed by tourists.
Outside the house of Monet and its gardens, the "Musee Americain" is
also very visited.
Now....if Giverny owes a lot to Monet, the contrary is far from true!
Never really accepted by the natives, Monet had no real contact with
the inhabitants, who asked him for money to let him paint the
haystacks he wanted to fix on the canvas. As we all know by now, Monet
needed genuine natural settings to paint, and above all, the different
light shades of the different moments of the day, more specially the
early morning light. Advised by his friend Eugene Boudin he painted at
the site spot, taking extremely care of the light and reduce them to a
luminous expression, images vaguely symbolized to the extreme and
obtain a light effect. For Monet the most important in a painting was
not the subject but how you painted it. "Impresssion, soleil levant"
was the work that gave birth to impressionism. Monet became the
indisputable master of the delicate lecture of natural light. He
painted a few of his most renowned master works, like the Nymphea
series, in the garden he created entirely himself.
But let's start the visit of the village as it should be: it's a
village, so let's try to get you in the atmosphere.
THE FONDATION CLAUDE MONET (House of Monet). Tel 0232512821 is open
from April 1 to October 31. Closed on Mondays (except on festive
days).
His pink and green house with its green window-shutters is an
explosion of colours. Arranged as a museum, his most known paintings
hang there in the form of reproductions. The dining room is bright
yellow with priceless chinaware plates. Also a lot of 17th century to
20th century Japanese wood carvings, it's private collection were a
precious study object for the pure colours and the possibility to mix
them together.
The kitchen is sky blue and the walls of the artist's room are hung
with Japanese prints.
Monet's life was regulated like a clock. He rose at dawn, took a
copious breakfast and ran off to study the light before it dissolved
into unusable one. In fact he created two gardens, where the place to
plant a flower or a plant was carefully debated to form perfect
compositions to his so famous paintings. He worked often on several
paintings at the same time, obtaining the light nuances at different
hours for the same subject. The colours of the flowers, the effects of
light and atmosphere are studied with the most care, therefore Monet
considered his gardens as his biggest masterwork, in a certain
perspective.
Bibliography
A little tour in France, by James Henry (ed.Farrar, New-York 1983),
Guide du routard 1998 (ed.Hachette), Normandie, pays de miel et de
lait, by J. Kahane (ed. Duseuil, Paris 1972)-Le monde retrouvé des
Impressionistes, by Bellony-Rewald A.(ed.Seghers Paris 1977), Claude
Monet, sa vie, son temps, son oeuvre, by G.Geoffroy (Paris 1922)
Jack
My Paris,daytrips from Paris, Provence, Cote d'Azur, valley of the
Loire, Belgium and Holland posts are open again at
http: http://i.am/jack_travel WITH pictures and at
http://home.mminternet.com/~nowhere_man